More than 200 nurses in New Providence and Grand Bahama staged industrial action after Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham announced that the government could not afford to provide them with their much-promised health care insurance benefits.
Ms. Hamilton says the government has still not presented nurses with a "decent offer" that would substitute their insurance benefit.
"I also heard talk about some terminations, but I do not think the government will carry out with such action. Despite what people may say, I believe the government will do what is right because nurses are still unhappy," Ms. Hamilton said in an interview with the Bahama Journal on Tuesday.
"Nothing much (as far as negotiations are concerned) has happened simply because we are taking the matter to court, but I believe and I hope that the government will do its best to protect us as essential workers."
The last time government officials met with officials from the BNU was on June 23.
Ms. Hamilton explained that the offer, which the government presented to the union, was not an offer at all.
"What the minister brought to us was regular national insurance assistance," she said.
"[We did not reject the offer, the offer was] something that is [given to] every civil servant in the country. Let me put it this way though, if you are in a position where the government will honour everybody’s agreement except yours and the government denies what is rightfully yours, would you be happy?"
Minister of Health, Dr. Hubert Minnis told the Bahama Journal shortly after the June 23 meeting that the government initially had an agreement with the nurses that the health benefit increase would be deferred and would come into effect in July 2010.
According to the health minister, the agreement stated that the government would provide private rooms in the Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH) to tend to sick nurses.
This, he said, was put in place in the interim.
- Austin DWI - New York DWI